Tier 2 Application Production Support (Kafka, AKS, Azure IBM Sterli)

Job Summary / About the Role

We are hiring a Tier 2 Application Support Engineer to manage complex escalations and drive technical stability across enterprise integration, messaging, and event-driven platforms. This role combines deep troubleshooting, root cause analysis, compliance execution, and onboarding/project support across production and non-production landscapes in on-prem and Azure environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Provide Tier 2 support for escalations from Tier 1 across incidents, alerts, environment issues, and C2W events.

• Resolve complex issues and lead root cause analysis, trend investigation, and improvement ticket creation.

• Support iTrack work requests, consulting tickets, and platform-aligned project deliverables.

• Provide additional C2W support when engaged by Tier 1.

• Execute compliance-related support tasks including CCRC, AT&T Cybersecurity Scorecard, and SOX support activities.

• Manage SSL certificate lifecycle support and remediation execution.

• Execute Golden Image and on-prem OS updates for existing VMs.

• Perform application installations and upgrades (outside monitoring/alerting platform scope handled by SRE).

• Support production/non-production setup and operations in Azure and on-prem environments.

• Support new client onboarding and implementation projects for enterprise integration and messaging services.

• Partner with architects and developers to analyze requirements and recommend technical options.

• Gather and publish monthly application and operational metrics.

• Manage ITAP data requirements and ensure operational governance.

• Review and validate Tier 1 SOPs; create and maintain Tier 2/client SOPs.

• Raise Tier 3 tickets for platform/tooling enhancements and monitoring-gap remediation.

Required Qualifications / Must-Have Skills

• 4+ years of experience in application production support, integration support, or platform support.

• Strong troubleshooting skills across distributed enterprise applications.

• Working knowledge of the mandated streaming stack, with operational support experience in Confluent Kafka and Azure Event Hub: Confluent Kafka, Confluent Cloud, Azure Event Hub, AWS-MSK, and Apache Flink.

• Practical knowledge of IBM Sterling Integrator.

• Hands-on operational experience with Kubernetes, especially Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS), in incident response and platform support.

• Working experience with Splunk and Prometheus/Grafana for diagnostics and observability.

• Python scripting capability for support automation, operational checks, and repetitive task reduction.

• Familiarity with Java, React, and Spring Boot based applications for troubleshooting and production issue triage (not an application development role).

• Solid SQL/Postgres query skills for production support analysis.

• Experience supporting CI/CD release operations.

• Strong stakeholder communication and incident coordination skills.

Good-to-Have / Nice-to-Have

• Azure/Kubernetes/ITSM certifications.